When you identify as a die

Hi all,

That month flew past! But good news! I was able to achieve a fair bit. Dice are now their own thing as opposed to just a counter. They have their own health and experience levels which change as they fight, and affect the outcome of their rolls. I will need to tweak how they change and how they affect rolls but that will be much further down the line.

I've dabbled on a standalone server for the game which has proven fruitful, as well as made some slight multiplayer improvements. This sets me up nicely for the next month's goals.

I've also asked Reddit about my process regarding art. So far so good so onwards to the next art step.

What's next

Multiplayer server

I would like to have a home server up and running in preparation for releasing the alpha of the game.

Automated builds and deployments

I would like to have a build server to automatically build the game files (windows and Linux originally) and trial using butler to auto upload to itch.io. This will prepare me for steam builds as well. I would also like the game server to have a build and deploy job. 

This will make my life a lot easier in the long run when deploying changes

Game and multiplayer quality of life improvements

• A few map highlights need fixing
• Some extra tooltips would be useful
• A delete building button is needed
• Need to make sure some buttons are not clickable in certain circumstances (not your turn, another winder is open)
• A little bit of "juice" when selecting buttons
• Terrain should affect battles. e.g. A defense bonus in forests and hills
• Terrain should impede movement

Easy AI completion

This is probably the biggest code item for the month. Right now the easy AI just moves around and attacks anything next to it. I would like the Easy AI to be fully playable so people who play the alpha get a reasonable taste of the intended experience. This should also give me something to think about on how to handle AI in the future

Art

I have a tablet. I am going to try and draw some art for the game itself. I will try for a steam capsule too, though that is one of the few things I've allowed myself to outsource. I will give it a go first. 

Bonus: Movement rework

Right now an army can move into the next cell. But with some armies having multiple movement points it would make sense to be able to choose a cell as an army's final destination, X cells away. This has multiplayer server implications as well as pathfinding needs so may take some thinking about and time.